The effect of mixing ground leaf litters to soil on the development of pitch pine ectomycorrhizal and soil arthropod communities in natural soil ... article from: Soil Biology and Biochemistry]

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Description:
The addition of leaf litter to soil influences both the nutrients and polyphenols of soil. It is likely that contrasting nutrient and polyphenolic composition of different plant litters may affect plant growth, mycorrhizal and soil arthropod communities. We report results from a microcosm experiment of effects of incorporation of three single leaf litter species and a mixture of all three on pitch pine seedling growth, their ectomycorrhizal community and soil arthropod community. The three litter species (pine, oak and huckleberry) represent co-dominant species within the New Jersey pine barrens ecosystem. We show that the leaf litters have different composition of nutrients and polyphenols, with rooting matrix containing pine litter having lower inorganic nitrogen content (1.6@mg g^-^1) than oak (19.9@mg g^-^1) and huckleberry (4.4@mg g^-^1), but oak litter having the highest extractable phosphorus (13.3 cf. 0-0.08@mgg^-^1) and total phenol content and lowest condensed tannin content. These differences were imparted to rooting matrix of homogenized humic (Oa) layer of pine barrens soil to which milled leaf litter was added and used in the microcosms. Pitch pine seedlings grew significantly better in un-amended rooting matrix (0.33+/-0.02g) than any of the litter treatments (0.15+/-0.02-0.17+/-0.01g) and tissue P concentrations tracked phosphate concentrations in the rooting matrix. Total P accumulation into plant tissue was higher in oak than control, attributable to a significantly higher (P